The purpose of this project is to investigate techniques to promote spontaneous generalization of learning by retarded children. Strategies to facilitate a child's ability to label categories of objects, rathern than only those objects used during initial instruction, will be investigated. Improvement of the ability to generalize across objects will result in a decrease in time required for repeated instruction and an increase in time available for new instruction. The research to be conducted is conceptualized within the framework of the best examplie theory of categorization, developed by Rosch and Mervis. This theory states that categories have an internal structure that allows their members to be grouped together based on their relationships to the best examples of categories. It is predicted that the manner in which instruction is delivered will affect a student's ability to comprehend the internal structure of concepts, which provides the basis for the ability to generalize. The five factes of instruction to be investigated include the mode of student response, the number of stimuli to be presented during initial formal instruction, the method of presentingnnnthe materials, the selection of setting in which to conduct instruction, and the selection of concepts to be taught. The studies will be conducted according to a repeated measures Latin square design, in which each student will receive instruction within all experimental conditions compared in each study. The results will be analyzed using the binomial distribution to determine if performance exceeds chance levels and an analysis of variance with multiple comparisons (Tukey's a) to determine if differences across conditions are significant.